


Angels Like Us

by Finn4



Category: Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:48:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29235582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finn4/pseuds/Finn4
Summary: “I know that you're wrong for meGonna wish we never met on the day I leaveI brought you down to your knees'Cause they say that misery loves companyIt's not your fault I ruin everythingAnd it's not your fault I can't be what you needBaby, angels like you can't fly down here with me”Camila Dunne fights to protect her family after coming face to face with her husband’s tour bus indiscretions.
Relationships: Billy Dunne/Camila Dunne
Comments: 1





	Angels Like Us

Billy Dunne had spent his entire life making mistakes. Big ones. Small ones. Stupid ones. Stupider ones. 

But somehow making them with Camila Rodriguez carried a weight he had never felt before. 

It was not lost on him that every mistake he made with her was a calculated attempt to scare her off. To trick her into proving to him that he was right about himself...that he was no good, and that no matter how hard she worked or how bad she wanted it: he never would be.

But yet, every time he all but intentionally fucked up and spiraled and wailed in a way he was sure would be her last straw, she managed to remind him that it was his actions...and not his person...that she despised. And more than that, she forced him to live with the repercussions instead of being the one to leave him sinking in a void. 

She made him recolor the portrait of himself he had been perfecting for years.

And he hated it.

So the night when a five month pregnant Camila stole away to road trip with Jenny Manes to surprise their respective members of The Six, and she was face to face with her worst fears - the worst version of the man who had become her husband and fathered the baby she was carrying even if it was by accident - she knew that she was in over her head. That she was losing him to a world she knew nothing about.

Camila knew when she was surrounded by a room full of friends not happy to see her, but painfully terrified. And Billy Dunne was not one of them. Karen looked like she had seen a ghost even as she tried to mask it by hugging Camila and palming her growing bump.

“How are you still this gorgeous?? Missed you, girl.” Karen whispered, as she pulled her into a hug that seemed designed to hold Camila in place. It lasted too long. And by the time Camila came up for air she noticed that Graham was gone. She made eye contact with Karen that held an entire conversation. A hello, a goodbye, an “I tried”, and most definitely an unspoken apology. Camila swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed through the crowd and out the back door. She saw the lights on in the tour bus. She knew where he was. She just didn’t know who he was.

And she didn’t know what to expect. Lines of coke...broken bottles...asleep in his own vomit. Any would have been preferable, as hard as that was for her to think, to the site of his bare ass...jeans barely slung about his knees, the bus full of smoke and music and moans. She watched longer than she should have before slamming her oversized leather purse onto the nearby glass table so hard she was sure it would go right through it. The sound was enough to force the blonde who was on her knees in front of him to peer at her around his hips, wiping her mouth as she did in way that made every fiber of Camila’s being wretch. She could barely even assess much of the girl her husband was cheating with before she had pushed herself up from the floor and clumsily flung herself out of the bus. As if there was some unspoken rule that she would have to leave when someone else came. Not expecting that “someone else” to be Mrs. Billy Dunne.

_ “Mrs. Billy Dunne.” _

What a title, she thought. What magic did it even hold. Married on a porch hours before he left her alone and pregnant...for this. Her mind was racing as she watched his shaky hands pulling at the loops on his jeans and covering himself before he turned to her, only barely.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, like a child who was caught in the cookie jar. That was all he could offer. No eye contact. No explanation. Just...that he was sorry. 

Camila watched him for a moment, willing him to look up and see the disgust on her face. He didn’t. 

So she grabbed her purse and clutched the handles in her aching fist as she swung it like she meant to hit a homerun; catching the side of his head and spinning him nearly off of his feet. He clutched at his jaw but didn’t retort. He knew he deserved it as much as she did. Maybe more. Billy turned back in her direction, still unable to look at her but far enough to catch a glimpse of Graham in the parking lot...winded and peeking up into the half closed blinds.

Camila turned to leave, and in his first dutiful act as her husband, Billy tucked his tail and followed her. 

The walk of shame up to his hotel room felt like a decade of time passing miserably slowly in a dense quiet that threatened them both as much as any speech could. Billy kept his distance from her, so much so that the hotel door had almost closed behind her by the time he slipped through it, be she didn’t turn to even make sure he was still there. 

She sat the purse down and moved right to the window. She stared into the night and cradled her growing belly as, for the first time, she felt a sob well inside her. But she was stronger than that. 

“Cami....”

“Get in the fucking shower before you even speak to me...”

She interrupted him sternly and with a protective edge that she didn’t even realize at the time WAS protective. Of her...her baby...their future. She knew in that moment that she was it’s guardian now. 

She heard him sludge through the room, moaning slightly, feet dragging. The sound of the water in the shower, his buckle hitting the floor. She fought hard to not keep revisiting the moments from the bus: his hands in a stranger’s hair, someone who was not her with their hands all over him. His shower lasted forever and she knew there was no amount of soap and water that would make him feel clean. She sat on the edge of the bed, still facing the window. Her hands playing at the fluttering in her belly as her only distraction. She realized the exhaustion that was slowly creeping over her. 

But the sound of the water turning off woke her right the fuck back up.

She heard him reenter the room, watched from the corner of her eye as he fished a pair of clean underwear out of the bag on the dresser. She tried to think of what she would say. What she should say. The fight to keep her resolve and fight for him as hard as she fought against him. He waded through the room as if she wasn’t there for a moment, and she knew why. He rifled through his bag. He lifted up a jacket from the floor and picked through its pockets. He grabbed another pair of discarded jeans from the chair and she heard the rustle of plastic in it’s pocket as he produced another bump of coke.

She watched him move in slow motion. Her eyes on him and her hands on their baby. He sat next to her. Just close enough. He fiddled clumsily with the bag.

“What are you doing?” She whispered. She watched as his brow furrowed and could read his mind: “what the fuck does it look like I’m doing, woman?” 

But he didn’t speak. He did pause though. Long enough for her to grab the bag and close it before tossing it into the bedside trash can. Billy watched with his palms in the air like he was begging for it back. Or for forgiveness. Or both.

“I said...what do you think you’re doing? Killing yourself? Killing this? Killing us? What is it?” 

Camila quizzed him with a more pensive and less accusatory tone that still made it’s way through a clenched jaw and hissing teeth. He finally...painfully slowly...raised his eyes to meet hers. The steely brown that was almost black and bored through him, until she caught that all too familiar wounded puppy look in his deep green. She grit her teeth against the urge to brush it all off and just tell him that whatever he did was fine: she wasn’t leaving. 

But it was not going to be that easy. Not this time and likely never again.He was sobering up. She could smell it on his skin, see it in his sunken eyes, the way the sweat on his brow was breaking out and mingling with the wet hair that hung to his brows. He leaned towards her as if he meant to rest his head on hers, and she recoiled. Unsure if it was an act of intimacy or a need to be held up.

“You’re a mess.” She whispered, and immediately wished she could unwhisper it.

“Yeah.” He whispered almost inaudibly and slumped into the bed on the weight of one arm as she pulled from him further. Camila shifted so far on the bed she was all but leaning on the headboard. She leaned her head against it, again reminded briefly of the hormonal exhaustion coursing through her. She watched from the corner of her eye as he stood, ready to charge him if he made a move for the trash can. She held her breath as she watched him walk around the room aimlessly before disappearing back into the bathroom. 

It wasn’t until she heard the shower running again that she realized every muscle in her body had been holding tension. She released it and exhaled audibly. With Billy in the bathroom, she retrieved the bag of coke from the trash and, handling it like a dirty diaper, sprinkled it into the hotel room sink as she ran water over it.She watching it form clumps then disappear into cloudy water that swirled the drain and left them both behind. If only it would be that easy. She stood for a moment, her fingers twisting in the long maxi that covered her. She looked down over her body and let the tiniest wave of doubt enter her mind. She thought of the tiny blonde frame on the bus. 

The water ran and she listened hard. Picturing the water in the sink. Imagining what would have made him get back into the shower. Sobering up? For how long? Feeling as miserable as she did? For how long?

She moved her bare feet through the carpet like it was quick sand until she stood at the bathroom door. She pressed it gently with her fingertips and the thick, scalding steam that escaped almost took her breath. 

“Jesus, Billy.....” she whispered, wondering if he was going to try to boil himself next. She moved through the bathroom, her white maxi immediately clinging to her in the wet heat as she pulled open the glass door and reached blindly for the knob. She was halfway in the shower before she found it, swearing at the hot water on her skin as she did, and giving it a solid turn until the water returned to something that made sense. Billy had his back to her, his head pressed against the tile. Eyes on his toes as the soaking wet curls of his hair dropped past his face. He had to know she was there, so she had assumed he had just passed out standing there in the heat with everything coursing through him. She put her hand on his reddened shoulder and he shrugged slightly. 

“Billy...” she whispered through the steam, but he didn’t turn.

“Billy. Look at me.”

Still nothing, even as she saw the muscle in his back move.

“I said look at me. Look at us. You aren’t the victim here.”

There was a thick silence between them, literally and figuratively, until he finally spun on his heels until it was his back, and not his forehead, pressed against the tile. He stared at her. She watched for a moment and wondered if he had been crying, although in the shower she would never know. He should have been though. She stared at him, looking back at her, soaking wet. Too thin. Still in his underwear. 

“Look at us.” She whispered again, her hands on her belly as her dress clung helplessly to it. Her voice broke, betraying her.

“Is it worth it? Is she?”

Billy took a step towards her but stopped when he felt her counter. 

“I don’t even know who ‘she’ is...” he brought himself to say.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Camila spat back quickly.

“I dunno....” Billy shrugged and hung his head again. 

“No. Don’t do that. You look at me....” Camila ordered him in a tone that left no room for disagreement, and he gradually raised his eyes back to her, “I don’t care who she is. She is a symptom.And you need to get whatever this shit is out of your system. Do you understand me? And don’t you tell me you don’t know. You’re better than this.”

Camila reached for his hand, taking it by the wrist and putting it on her stomach. 

“I’m sorry...” he whispered again, sheepishly. 

“Don’t be sorry. Just...be better.”

Camila felt his fingers playing at the skin on her stomach. She knew he meant it, and she knew he could be. But she had to make could be into would be, and she couldn’t...no, wouldn’t do that for him. 

“I love you.” Billy whispered and she didn’t answer back. Because as she watched his face she knew he wasn’t talking to her. 

“I know.” She finally said. She lowered her eyes to watch him put his other hand on her stomach and hold her gently that way, her dress soaked to her skin like toilet paper. With his eyes fastened to her belly she reached up and slid her thumbs under the thin straps that held the increasingly heavy dress on her tanned frame. She pulled them down over her forearms until they reached her elbows and she could maneuver her way free. She let the cottony fabric fall from her and pool over his hands on her. 

“What are you doing...” he whispered in a question more loaded than he realized. She had no idea. But she knew in that moment what would paralyze her for most of her life: the person who could bruise her was the only one who could heal her. She didn’t answer. She pushed the dress over her bump until his hands met hers and helped her gingerly. Together they eased it over her hips until it pooled in the shallow water at their feet. 

Being bare and vulnerable in front of him, in that moment, caused her to all but collapse into him. She folded her elbows in over her breasts and curled into a ball as he pulled her into his chest, as overheated as it was underfed. But she relished it. Her long brown hair was soaked and sticking to her back. He buried his fingers in it and locked her against his chest. 

And he held her there so long that the water ran cold. Neither of them spoke. No one cried. Just held onto each other. Camila closed her eyes against his chest and willed herself inside of it. Knowing that no matter what happened in that moment he still had three months on the road in front of him. And she was hopeful...not stupid.

When the water had started to chill her to the point that he could feel goosebumps on her skin, Billy reached behind her and turned the water off, grabbing for a towel in the same movement and pulling it up behind her until she was wrapped in it and tucked into his arms. He carefully adjusted his footing on the wet tiles before sweeping her up and lifting her out of the shower. She thought, he can do this. He wrapped her and carried her with no regard for how cold he might be. Wasn’t that what he needed when you got right down to it? How could she convince him that he was enough? 

Billy made his way to the bed and turned it down gently, placing her into it...still wrapped in a towel. He moved from the bed, making his way to the chair by the bed, before she caught the tips of his fingers with her own. He glanced over his shoulder at her, as she slid her body from the towel and into the center of the bed. He could see the heat in her chest in how she was breathing. The way she looked at him. Like there was a promise he had to make her before he left her again. Her eyes traced the line of his body and landed at his waist, still covered with the cold wet cotton of his underwear. He turned to the bed, until he met the edge of it. He reached for the lamp on the end table and pulled the chain to kill it before making his way out of what was left of his clothes.

Being next to her, naked in bed, even as he pulled himself just over the cliff of sobriety...he realized he hadn’t seen her body the way it was. Still tan and dark, her skin glowed in a way that transfixed him, and now there was no denying her growing belly. And more specifically...what it meant. He leaned over her and placed his head on her stomach, kissing it gently as he ran his hand over it. She watched him carefully, playing at his wet hair even as he closed his eyes....like he was trying to make it go away. She pulled at his hair hard enough to redirect him and pull his face to hers before she lost him to it again. 

Billy slowly made his way up her form, dragging his nose against her and inhaling her scent as she arched her back and pressed up against him, desperate to feel him in a way that didn’t make her angry. She let her hands find the small of his back and guide him up over her, pushing and adjusting her fingers until she had convinced him that she wanted him on her. She felt his body harden under her hands, and not in the way she was needing, but in a fear or unwillingness to move his weight onto her. She watched as he lifted his eyes and met hers, like he was asking her permission and her forgiveness all at once. She let the corner of her mouth lift just enough to show him something other than disappointment for the first time since she had arrived. 

Her hands moved from his back to his shoulders as she eased him back away from her until he was beside her. Camilla turned in the sheets until she faced him, and he lowered the arm he had extended under his own head until he could slide it under hers. She nestled into the crook of his elbow and shimmied her body closer to him. She wondered if laying in that nakedness would be enough. Just the two of them. Bare, unencumbered.Would it be enough to get her through the next few months? Of not knowing? 

She lifted her top leg and draped it over his hip, eliciting a gentle moan from his lips that was all the encouragement she needed. Her scent filled the room as soon as she parted her legs for him and as she glanced between them at his growth she knew it was turning him on. She exhaled in relief that he was even in a way to function. She pressed her lower body against him while keeping some distance from his chest. Camila reached between them, tracing her fingers through the patch of hair that led from his belly to his groin, until she found his length with her hand. He moaned and rolled his head back between his shoulder blades.

“No...” Camila whispered to him, popping his head back up until she would grab his chin with her free hand. She locked her eyes with his and held his chin, letting him know that he was not leaning away, not closing his eyes, not hiding from her. She wanted him to see her as much as she needed to see him. And she was hoping to somehow burn it into his brain. She closed the space between their chests, her eyes boring into his with a brown so black it almost looked red. She was moving her hand slowly and deftly over his length and he started to gradually move his hips against her fingers, both of them gradually pulling and pushing him towards her waiting center. She cried out when he found her opening, taken aback by the new sensitivity of it all but also a giant breath that she had been holding for months. Billy pressed his forehead into hers and met her sounds, quietly moaning through barely parted lips as they stared at each other.He paused only slightly when she hissed and adjusted to his size, still trying to make himself comfortable with her new body and the figurative weight it carried.

When Billy found himself completely inside of yhis wife, he took her closer to him...pulling his arm around her neck and placing the other one just above her bottom on the small of her back. Camila’s hips rocked against him, the only movement she had the space left to make. Her lips grazed his in what could barely be described as a kiss and he fought the unquestionable urge to close his eyes...knowing that was the connection more important than anything else they were doing. 

Billy reached between them and found her with his fingers, rolling them gently over her swollen skin in the way he knew she liked and needed, and she purred in response and found her own eyes closing.

“No...” he whispered. And she opened them. Watching him again, lost in the excitement of what he was doing to her. Letting it sober him up in the only way he could stand. She felt herself smile slightly, knowing that he was needing her in the way she needed him. The way he had made her doubt. The way that told her there was something hovering in the space between them that he was never going to find in a nameless groupie or a dingy bar or a bag of coke. And she wanted to believe him.

She needed to believe him.

She felt herself nearing the edge and he could, too. He masterfully teased and rolled her sensitive skin until she all but exploded around him. Her body jerked and pulled endlessly, as he cradled and held her as still as he could in his arms. She felt him find his own release as her belly warmed from him and his forehead pressed into hers. Their eyes still locked on each other’s even as they winced and rolled and widened. 

Camila twitched and jerked until she felt herself calm. Billy slowly stilled deep inside her. They fought to catch their collective breath. Soaked from each other. He let his head fall into her shoulder and was passing out there even as he was still inside of her. She watched as his eyes closed and didn’t move, but let herself find sleep as well, her leg over his hip...still one with him, in a pile of sweaty sheets that cocooned them both.

Hours had passed before she woke up. Her leg still draped, but not over Billy. Over a cool and still damp expanse of empty bed. She stretched and tried to wake herself up, moving her hand from the equally empty pillow to her belly as was her habit, wondering if it was his movement from the bed that woke her.

It wasn’t. 

As she came to she could hear him in the room behind her so she pretended to still sleep. Even as her heart sank at the sound of him rifling through the plastic lined trash can he had watched her throw his fix into. She heard him swear under his breath as he dumped and rifled. She lay perfectly still, almost smug that she had thought to get it out of the trash can. After several minutes he slid, defeated, back into the bed. This time, spooning up behind her. He thread his arm over her hip, put his face in her hair, and gradually drifted back off as she felt his breathing change. Gratefully. She half expected him to wake her and ask where it was but she knew he knew better.She grit her teeth. Ground them. Debating her next move and wondering how it would set the rest of their lives in motion. 

But once she knew he was asleep, the idea of him digging through trash to get a bump of coke in the middle of the night played at her consciousness more than any haphazard blowjob. She slid from beneath him and stood by the bed watching him sleep as she chewed at her fingers. In the cover of night she eased herself into a shirt of his and a pair of shorts she had in her bag. She sat at the hotel desk and wrote him a note. She had intended to just leave it in bed for him, but she thought better of it. If she was leaving him behind with only his battered conscious to guide him...she wanted him to know she had eyes.

So she slid from their room and made arrangements to leave before he woke up. Not before leaving her note with Karen, who was all too aware of why she had written it. And why she was leaving.

Camila was giving Billy the same time to exorcize his demons as she was giving their baby to grow. And in that moment she realized that Billy wasn’t going to do it for her. It wasn’t that easy. Her only hope was that someday he would choose to do it for himself. For the three of them. 

She left with the hope that the Billy she had fallen in love with would fight as hard for them as they would for him.

That he would come back. For both of them.


End file.
